


Hanging on the Telephone

by jendavis



Series: Writing on the Wall [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 13:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: They both have lives to get back to.  But they keep in touch, and now Richie's tour is heading Eddie's direction.There's no need to panic.





	Hanging on the Telephone

Myra'd filled his gaps for a long time, but she'd done it in the way water tended to work down into rock, sinking in and eventually freezing, splintering the substrate even more. But the cracks had been there to begin with, and that had never been her fault. 

Eddie moves out, simply because everything in the condo, from the furniture to the ironing board to the stenciled _live laugh love_ canvas art on the kitchen wall were Myra's design choices more than his. He's long suspected- he's talked about it before with Emma, if not quite gotten the nerve to bring it up with Myra- but it not until he's packing that he really realizes how lightly he'd lived, here. Divvying up the artifacts of their marriage, the only thing they can really find to squabble about are the frying pans. 

There's something particularly gutting about being less wanted than an easily replaced kitchen implement, Eddie supposes, but it's better than either of them fighting to hang on to the other. It makes for a relatively amicable split. There's no need to make scenes. He doesn't ask if he's the only one keeping a tally in the back of his head: who fucked who over first or worse, who wasted whose time more. 

It's probably not smart, but he skips out on his appointments with Emma. Partially because he worries that, given the chance, he'll wimp out and talk himself out of it, but mostly because this is the first time in his adult life that he _knows_ what he needs to do. He's got a well-maintained list of things he's not supposed to call resentments that he's never managed to bring up with Myra. Leaving them unspoken on his way out might not allow for the closure and growth that Emma's always talking about, but it's kinder. 

Because Myra _isn't_ a bad person. She cares a lot about the people in her life, and she's capable of reading boundaries. It's just that, with _him_, the most symbiotic part of their relationship has always been the way their worst traits tend to feed and feed _off_ each other's worst traits. Myra'd filled his gaps for a long time. That's got to count for something, even if, towards the end it was like water working down into rock, sinking in and eventually freezing, splintering the substrate even more. But the cracks had been there to begin with, and that had never been her fault. Besides. _Myra_ isn't the one who disappeared for a weekend with barely-friends from high school. 

He knows he's giving her the impression that this is all just a run of the mill midlife crisis, but it's not like he can tell her, really, about Derry. She asks if it's because he's a bi man trapped in a cishet relationship, and her tone in that moment explains _so much_ of their past few years that it all actually makes sense. 

It hadn't taken therapy to admit that he's had one eye on the door for a few years now, and it's only now that he can see that Myra, for her part, has been spending at least the past few years been simultaneously trying to keep him there, and steeling herself for the inevitable- to the extent that the things designated as _his_ don't even fill the back of his no-longer-pristine SUV. 

So when she asks, he shrugs. Lets her be the one to draw the connection more plainly for them both. 

He doesn't mention Richie, though. Nobody wants to hear that they're being replaced, and it's been two weeks since the _holy shit we survived_ adrenaline spike gave him the push to posit the question with Richie. He knows he still wants- worries he might _need_\- him. And they've been texting and emailing daily; he's pretty sure the interest is mutual, _but_.

It's presumptive. It's been a month, and thumb-typed messages on phones don't always give the clearest picture, even though they're the only thing keeping him from losing his fucking _mind_. 

\--- 

He's driving out of Derry, heading into a vast, milky gray fog, and Richie's happy. He's talking- he can't hear himself, but he's talking- to Eddie, in the passenger seat, and when he looks over at the sound of his laughter, Eddie's as pale and washed out as the scenery outside but for the red-black gash collapsing his chest. 

The light's already gone out of him, there's a light _growing_ out of him, shoving wetly through the cavernous hole in his chest, suddenly shooting free, baseball-sized, to swoop around the car before hovering in front of him, growing brighter and brighter, until it becomes a poorly-angled spotlight blinding all thought and memory out of him and he can hear the audience beginning to unsettle. 

\---

It's the third nightmare he'd had this week, but at least this time, it's fading quick, and Richie's not so shaken that he can't _move_. 

Disentangling himself from the sheets, the sweat on his skin cools instantly, but doesn't evaporate; it's been raining in Chicago all week and the hotel's air conditioning can't make a dent in the humidity. At least that's what he's telling himself. 

Phone first, then glasses, he reaches over for the nightstand looking for a distraction. Hoping- blatantly and loudly- for the form it'll take. 

And it's _there_, because somehow, even with all the shit Eddie's going through, he still sees fit to fire him an update on the whole crash and burn of his marriage in the middle of the night. Richie opens the message without looking at the time, because it's better not to know, when sleep is needed and maybe not coming

_My whole life is a lie. Apparently I make the world's shittiest omelets, so Myra won't let me have the good frying pan._

_You're giving her the whole house_, he types, _ and your mom is pissed over a fucking frying pan?_

He hesitates, reading it before hitting send, because while he's not rehearsed when it comes to actually being in relationships, he's not unobservant. And what he hasn't observed from watching his work-wife-slash-roommate become Chuck's girlfriend-now-spouse, the two of them would flat-out _tell_ him. Even back before marriages and writing credits had been formalized their respective deals, Maria'd always had a knack for taking his ideas and making them _funny_, and Chuck'd been good at making them funny to _other people_, who tended, on the balance, to be less fucked in the head than the likes of them. 

Maria'd probably point out that the _your mom_ joke's cliche, though she can't account for the audience here, and Chuck would have some concerns over the overuse of frying pan. Richie's pretty sure both of them would warn him off going too hard on the soon-to-be-ex-wife of his childhood best friend, and they'd be right. Whatever they're at now, Eddie'd loved Myra enough to marry her in the first place, and she'd been there for Eddie when Richie hadn't even been able to remember that he existed. 

So he deletes it and starts again. 

_Take it anyway, your omelets aren't going to improve if you can't practice. Besides you're giving her the house, and also you're 40 so it's not like she can ground you._

He hits send before his brain can spend any more time riffing off omelets and breakfast and all the potential material there, just in case it doesn't land right, and tosses his phone back on top of the notebook on the nightstand. It had been waiting for him when he'd checked out of the hotel in Seattle, and the gift receipt had contained a note: _I know you said it was awful, but I watched your special anyway. It was good! Bet your own jokes would be funnier, though._

Eddie hasn't pressed, hasn't said anything more about it, but Richie's been starting to think about it in fits and starts. If tragedy plus time equals comedy, he's got several years of suddenly remembered weird shit that he could, at some point, mine for material. But so far, all he's managed to get down is sixteen pages of disjointed notes: shower caps and mix tapes and middle schoolers hanging out in their underwear. Remembering as an adult that you had, in fact, actually been diagnosed with ADHD, you'd just been forgetting to pick up your meds for thirty years. 

Somewhere in there, he's got the beginnings of what could be massaged into a line about "back in my day, we didn't have helicopter parents, our folks just let us roam the neighborhood in packs, stoning each other and murdering clowns unattended," but it's going to need work, and he doesn't know how it'll play to a crowd. Maria would probably laugh, but Chuck probably wouldn't. Richie's not sure, yet, but he starting to think that maybe this time, he doesn't want their input. Besides. Between their kid and their sitcom getting picked up for another three seasons, they wouldn't have the time anyway. 

Towards the back of the notebook, he's been compiling the nightmares. He'd had one again, he just can't remember it in any detail, now. In the morning- the real, _correct_ morning, and not whatever this here now is- he thinks he might send Eddie another message, see about if he's got a good therapist he could recommend, seeing as how he'll be out there in a few days. 

Then again, maybe not. Eddie'd rolled with him losing his shit back in Derry, but dredging it up right off the bat might make him regret the invitation- _thanks, but no thanks_. 

His phone screen flashes to life; it's Eddie, texting back. _Shit, thought you'd get that in the morning, sorry if I woke you,_

_That whole not dying thing's turned you into an unbearable optimist,_ he types back.

_Dreams again?_

Fucking obviously. _Yeah what's the big deal with the frying pan anyway?_

_It's an all-clad!_

Richie blinks, trying to figure out if it's a typo, or if Eddie's words actually mean something. 

_...sounds serious. Could find a hitman to take care of it for you_

_HEY FBI HOW ARE YOU ALSO HE'S KIDDING_

_idk been trying to get that agent to call for years but they never do i'm starting to think I have no game_.

Wavering ellipses, for a moment, and then, _Don't worry about it I am an export and I KNOW you have no game._

He laughs. Sends back, _wow_

And a minute late his phone pings again. _*expert_

What a fucking asshole. 

\--- 

Eddie orders a cheap couch and a slightly less cheap bedroom set from Ikea. Assembling the bed, dresser and nightstand is more meditative than he'd expected; he's not even finished breaking down the cardboard and corralling all the packaging before he's back on the website, shopping again. The apartment is month to month, and he doesn't want to set up too deeply, here, but he orders a table for the kitchen. One chair, and then, realizing that Richie will be here in a few days, a second, as well as a nightstand for the other side of the bed, just in case. And if it doesn't come to be, well, at least everything is symmetrical. 

And then it's Wednesday and someone named Anthony is on the phone. He's Richie's agent-slash-manager, he explains, and he wants to confirm his contact information and address, and maybe it's just the divorce proceedings that has Eddie thinking of custody negotiations. Or like Richie's being let out on work release, maybe.

"I'll email you the schedule for the car service as soon as the details are locked down. And I've got room at my table for both performances if you'd like to ride along with him and attend." Anthony tells him, but doesn't press for a response. "Also, I know he says he thinks he might be staying with you, but I always plan for flexibility, so we're keeping his reservation at the Fairmont open all weekend, just in case it winds up being more convenient at some point." 

He doesn't know if it's all just standard managerial procedure for this industry, or if there's more of an historic need for the disclosure, but it's not until Anthony's telling him that he's got copies of all of Richie's insurance information- _just in case_, of course, nothing to worry about- that Eddie wonders how much of Richie's risk Anthony's had to manage over the years. 

It's a stupid thing to get jealous over, but it happens anyway.

\--- 

The green room here is musty and stale, and the scribble-heavy wall the bored bar manager has him sign- out of tradition, not interest, he's relieved to note- reminds him of sewer graffiti and kissing bridge carvings in equal measure; it's nauseating. He passes the marker back to her and she heads out, leaving a vague, "let me know if you need anything," in her wake.

He can hear Anthony finishing on the phone before he comes through the door, handing him a whiskey from the bar. It's watered down, the ice half-melted, and Richie's tracked this tendency for weeks, now; it's deliberate. Mild managerial revenge for leaving him with a handful of dates to reschedule and no idea why. 

"Checked in on the Miami flight," Anthony says, pocketing his phone and passing him the bottle of water from his jacket pocket. "We're all good for tomorrow."

"Thanks." 

"Find anything you want to see tomorrow afternoon? Late show, no press, gonna have some time to kill."

He hadn't even bothered googling, he realizes, guiltily. It used to be a thing, bumming around, getting the feel for a town, getting out from the circuit of hotels, clubs, and airports. But today'd been another day spent moping around his hotel room, staring at his thinning hair and heavy glasses and the general wreckage of his aging face in the mirror. Which means that Anthony'd spent the afternoon twiddling his thumbs, waiting for his charge to show some signs of life; he's got to be as sick of living on the road as Richie is, if not more so.

"Could take a spin through Little Havana on the way to the venue, if you're feelin' it," Anthony suggests, looking down at his phone, either checking the time, or looking for someone less boring to represent. 

"Sounds good, thanks." He smiles, because he owes him that at least, but Anthony just shrugs and hovers, looking slightly worried. It goes on just long enough that Richie freezes, not wanting to look up to see the inevitable _what happened to you, man_ question worrying at the back of his eyes again. Anthony's been good about not asking too often, but the emcee's taking her time warming up the crowd, and now might be the time. 

"You good?"

The house manager ducks her head in. "Five minutes," she warns, which is his cue to straighten out his shit and for Anthony to head out to find his seat back by the bar. 

"Yeah, for sure," Richie tells him, and this time, he manages to sell the grin. Anthony claps him on the back, and a moment later, he's alone. And guiltily relieved, because up until a few weeks ago, he'd forgotten the first seventeen years of his life- he'd forgotten that there'd been anything worth missing. But he'd gotten used to it, and he'd learned, early on, how to plaster over it. Now that the memories have sorted themselves back into place, all he's really been aware of is how damned _lonely_ it's been, and the effort, suddenly, is exhausting.

He turns his phone off on his way to the stage. There aren't any messages, anyway. 

\--- 

Moping in hotel rooms aside, the tour's been going well. Nothing fills seats like the specter of a complete meltdown, but at least the acoustics in here are good enough that if anyone's heckling from the back, Richie can't really hear it. But he can read the crowd, he knows they're thinking the same thing Seattle and Chicago'd thought. 

"So yeah," he says, once he's warmed them up a bit. "Elephant in the room time." He sips his water, then screws the cap back onto the bottle, wishing- again, like last night- that he could pull off the drinking-through-the-set vibe that Lewis Black's perfected. "We need to talk about your taste in entertainment."

The pause is puzzled- which means that either nobody'd bothered filming him with their phones the past few nights, or that nobody here's bothered to notice. Could be, though, that this bit hadn't been funny enough to remember- that's what he gets, testing out new material on the fly without Maria and Chuck weighing in- but he squashes the thought down hard as his knuckles tighten on the mic. 

_This kills monsters if you believe it does_. 

"See, my manager, he tells me, 'hey, dipshit, nice job forgetting your jokes and fucking off to Maine with no fucking notice,' and-" pausing, he leans into Anthony's Brooklynite accent, "'Just so you know, the whole thing with that self-destructive celebrity act is that you actually _need_ to be a celebrity, first.'" 

This gets the laugh, again, like he'd known it would, so he grins, waves out at the crowd. "And yeah, but look around, here, you people have packed this joint. Some hack comes out, forgets his lines and then just bails five minutes into the set, and you're all _great_, sign me up. I gotta say, hey, if that's all you're expecting out of your entertainment budget, at least the hookers in this town must have an easy time of it."

There are whoops in the crowd, and more importantly, he's got his segue back into the regularly scripted material. "Yeah, we all love hookers- they're great, aren't they? _So_ much easier than dating. You know they let you win at Mario Kart like every time? You don't even have to pay extra!" 

\--- 

Fridays at the office are usually slow- the people who have his phone number don't tend to be as beholden to the nine to five schedule as their employees are, and they're usually off to their weekend homes by noon- but if there's going to be some kind of weekend emergency, he'd like get it over with on the front end before it has the chance to fuck up his weekend, but _God_, it's been years since he's given a damn about the state of his days off, and he doesn't know what to do with himself.

He winds up spending most of the afternoon refreshing the shipping tracker on his furniture order, and worrying, stupidly about what he's going to wear. Despite the fact that he knows Richie won't give a damn about the furnishings or Eddie's choice in shirts, he'd at like to at least give off some kind of impression that he's got his shit together. 

They're not in Derry anymore, and since then, reality's reasserted itself. Eddie's memories have had time to sort themselves into place, more or less, and he's pretty sure the same goes for Richie, which means that for as all-encompassing as the mere fact of _knowing_ each other had seemed at the time, there'd been no guarantee of permanence. They'd just gone through something weird and intense, and everything outside of the two of them had felt hypothetical and breezily unimportant. 

And since then, Richie'd gone back to tour dates, adoring fans, and manager-booked rooms in swanky hotels, while Eddie'd gone back to routine office management meetings, a sad-nothing apartment, and his divorce. Phone calls and text messages never give the full picture, and it's possible- even probable- that he's hanging more hopes on Richie than Richie wants him to. All Eddie can really do is try to get his shit together enough that Richie won't take one look at his unfiltered life and just bail, or worse, pity him. A few pieces of plywood furniture are easier to assemble than a complete and total illusion. 

His phone pings to tell him the delivery truck's en route to his apartment- it's as good an excuse as any to cut out early- and directly underneath is the reminder that Richie's flight will be landing at 7:48 tomorrow morning. 

They won't be meeting up until later in the day, so he's got some time, yet. 

\--- 

At 5:27, with rush hour in full swing outside, Eddie's phone rings.

"Hey," Richie says, while somewhere in the background a flight is being called. "Just got into Miami, do you want a fifteen hundred dollar ham?"

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm serious!" Eddie's phone beeps- Richie's switching over to Facetime, so Eddie gets up off the floor and moves to the window, where the camera won't pick up all the Ikea debitage strewn all over the apartment. This is the first time, he realizes, that they've done this video chat thing during _daylight_ hours. The last time they'd done this- when Richie'd demanded evidence that the hole in the side of Eddie's face was healing as well as it should be- all he'd been able to see of Richie's face had been his smirking mouth and his phone's screen reflecting in his glasses. 

The _first_ time they'd done this, it had been three in the morning, and while Eddie can't remember whose nightmare had prompted the phone call on that particular night, Richie's voice on the line had been so dead, so fucking _hollow_ that Eddie'd needed to confirm that both of them were awake, and that Richie hadn't been holding a fucking razor to his wrist. It had, of course, taken some cajoling to talk Richie into it, and when the camera'd come on, Eddie'd seen him leaning against a hotel bed headboard. The bedside lamp had carved him out in stark relief, and had left most of his face in shadow, probably by design. 

Eddie switches to video chat, and is immediately presented with..._yup, that's a ham_. 

"It comes with a custom leather carrying case, for all your ham carrying needs," Richie's explaining. "But wait, there's more! The very helpful salesman here has assured me that it _also_ comes with a display stand. Throw this beauty up on the sidebar, you'll surely be the envy of the block."

"Uh. No thanks."

"All right, well... I'm gonna be back through here first thing tomorrow morning, so if you change your mind..." Everything swerves as the front camera is activated. He's standing against a fabric-coated wall in the Miami airport, hair damp at the edges from where he'd probably just splashed some water on his face and maybe, now that Eddie's looking closer, just shaved. Instead of the stretched out t-shirt collar, it's one that fits, nicely, underneath a well-tailored suit jacket. James Bond by way of Allen Ginsberg. 

Though in the instant that Eddie's taking this all in, he's also noticing an uneasy flash in Richie's eyes as he glances towards something off camera. When Richie looks back, his expression is recovered into more of a deliberately concerned frown. "Wait."

Eddie raises his eyebrows in challenge, if only because it's either that or looking around for whatever embarrassing thing he's inadvertently left in the camera's view, or staring down at the quarter-sized image of himself in the corner of the screen. He's disheveled as all hell, needs a shave, and he's sweat through his undershirt, like some kind of streetwalking junkie. _Fantastic._ "What?"

"You aren't vegan or anything, are you?"

"No." He doesn't mean to make it a question, but it's become one. 

"Good." 

"Good?" 

The camera angle shifts, a little, and Richie's expression is familiar again. A little nervous, but nothing to worry about. "I was kind of thinking. Looking around, there's supposed to be a good steak place a few blocks from the hotel, when I get into town. If you wanted to go grab dinner or something."

"Sounds good." He keeps his voice casual; knuckling the only slightly-scabby scar on his cheek does a pretty good job of hiding his face, though he he probably isn't fooling Richie at all. 

Richie's grinning, gorgeous and wide, and he's about to say something when Anthony's voice drifts in from off-camera: Richie's got soundcheck in an hour, they've got to go. 

\--- 

Miami's show would probably be better if the stage lights were a different shade of white- maybe not clustered together up at _that_ particular angle. Or if Richie didn't keep catching himself thinking about Eddie, sweaty and rumpled in that stupid threadbare undershirt, or the fact that in less than twenty four hours, they'll be face to face and he has _no_ plan whatsoever. Or, more mundanely, if Richie weren't so sick of the sound of his own damned voice. 

But he keeps talking. 

This is the job, lying for laughs. And this is what's been itching at his edges for weeks, now, the fact that he knows it, now, he _knows_ how deep this well goes, and he's not sure how he's going to climb out of it. He could interrupt his own stupid routine, if he wanted to, he could get real. He could be terrifyingly honest. 

There's nobody stopping him from just launching into his own forgotten history. He could ramble about monsters and closets and gaping holes in chests that might not be as patched over as he's hoping, and nobody would interrupt; _he's_ the one holding the mic. He could turn his jokes about the crowd being here to watch him implode into something thoroughly and brutally _true_, and maybe, as they tear him limb from limb, they'd all keep laughing. Maybe it's inevitable, becoming his own punchline. 

Maybe, maybe not. Contractual obligations are a bitch, but they're safe. 

All he needs is to get through tonight, then two nights in Boston- and _Eddie_\- and then he's got a week before the make-up date in Denver. After that, he's free to retreat, to just _take_ a fucking minute and avail himself of whatever drawing boards he can drag up out of the dumpster. 

But he keeps talking, and eventually, _somehow_, the five minute warning light hanging over the bar goes red. He's almost made it through. 

\---

_You awake yet?_

The message notification sinks down over his screen; it's gone by the time he's put his coffee cup down. The dreams had kept him up again, more insulting than horrifying at this point, and he's been meticulously not-watching the flight tracker on his phone since five this morning. But he hadn't been expecting a message yet, not before noon. He'd just been expecting to spend the morning at his almost-rickety kitchen table, waiting for contact, devouring himself with his own anxiety. 

So it could be, he's pathetically grateful for the message. 

_Yeah. You in town?_ He already knows the plane's landed. But it's that or sit there with his thumbs hovering over the screen, a few taps away from saying something stupid, like _when can I see you?_

_Just leaving the airport now_. The ellipses hang, for a minute, then disappear. _You busy?_

_Not even a little bit_, he sends. Then, pathetically grateful that Richie isn't calling, that there's not witness to his very uncool hopeful desperation, here, adds, wanna grab breakfast?

Richie's reply is a long time coming. It's seven minutes before it arrives. 

_Just rerouted the driver. Be there in fifteen minutes_.

\--- 

This early on a Saturday morning, with no rush hour traffic for camouflage, the car pulling up outside isn't hard to spot. Eddie watches Richie grab his duffel from the pile of luggage in the trunk, then pause long enough to speak to the man in the front passenger seat. The ever-present Anthony, Eddie supposes. 

A moment later, the car's pulling away and Richie's heading for the building, his shoulders tightening in with every step. He's still in last night's clothes; if he'd bothered trying to sleep between last night's and the airplane, there's no sign. 

At least Eddie's own hastily thrown together efforts to get himself ready will probably not be noticed or needed. He doesn't bother putting on his shoes; he just buzzes the downstairs door open before Richie can even find the doorbell. Opening the apartment door, he listens to the sounds of Richie coming up two flights of stairs and tries to calm himself the fuck _down_. 

He doesn't know how this is supposed to go, what he's supposed to _do_, here. Phone calls and text messages are one thing, but in the harsh gray light of morning, the month it's been since Derry is about to become glaringly apparent. And now, finally and too-suddenly, Richie's on this floor, he's rounding the corner at the top of the stairs and he's scanning the door numbers, turning around to follow them this way, and maybe Eddie should've waited for him there instead, maybe he should've waited inside for him to knock. 

Yesterday's clothes don't look nearly as polished as they'd seemed on the phone, and Richie's grin is exhausted, but it's _genuine_, like he's halfway to laughing. Possibly because Eddie's frozen to the spot, trying to gauge whether or not he should greet him with a hug or a handshake or-

Richie kind of leans, kind of stumbles into him, playing it for laughs and slinging his arms heavily over Eddie's shoulders. 

He's surprisingly warm- maybe too warm- but something slots into place, like a gap getting filled. Eddie has a few seconds to think, pathetically honest and thankfully silent, _welcome home_, as he tightens his grip around Richie's ribs. The hug doesn't last as long as he wants. 

"Hey," Richie says, mouth twisting, going shy as he pulls away.

"Hey," Eddie forces the word out, steps back himself, forces his hands back down. He can hear a TV in the apartment two doors down, and takes an abortive step backwards into his doorway, then another, holding it open. "Good trip?"

"Fuckin' red-eyes, all the way." Richie lets him take his duffel bag; this gets set on the couch, giving Richie space to make his first impressions without scrutiny. "Nice place."

It's a lie, but Eddie doesn't correct him. He wants to offer him coffee, breakfast, wants to list seven great cafes he knows of, but he hasn't explored this part of town just yet, and already he's fucking this up, he'd just assumed, from the sounds of it, that Anthony would've already had Richie set up with ideas. 

"Coffee's on, want some? Or-" _did you want to get going_, he doesn't finish; apparently now that Richie's here, Eddie wants so badly for the answer to be _no_ that he's channeling Myra, needier and more desperate than he wants to be. 

\--- 

Richie reaches his arms over his head, knuckles brushing plaster as he stretches. There's a mild wave of energized nerves, oxygen reaching cells that feel like they've been starved for weeks, but the sensation doesn't last. He should've just gone to the hotel, gotten checked in, taken a nap. Made himself human before showing up here, all dried sweat and exhaustion. 

Eddie's in jeans and a long-sleeved tee, no shoes. Not as distractingly rumpled as he'd been last night, but not fully armored for daytime, yet, either.

The scar on his cheek only pulls at his dimple a little bit when he smiles. And now that he's seen it close up and in person, now that he's confirmed that Eddie's all right, the manic need that'd set upon him mid-flight, to confirm that Eddie's alive, that Eddie's _all right_ banks back in on itself enough to manage a response.

"Coffee'd be great, yeah," he says, though he really doesn't need it on top of the sludge he's been dumping down his gullet for twelve hours; his nerves are already plenty scrambled. He wants to sleep, he wants to crack jokes or kiss him or be anything other than the awkward oaf currently imposing himself on Eddie's morning.

Sure, he'd been invited, and plans had been loose, but who the fuck shows up before 9AM on a Saturday? He could've gone to the hotel, crashed out for a few hours. If he'd waited until then to hit him up for lunch, or coffee, or an early dinner, he'd at least be functional when it came time to figure this all out. 

_This_ being this weekend or the two of them, he's not even sure. The latter, he thinks, would be easier with a few watered down club drinks under his belt before getting into it. Instead, Eddie's setting a mug on the perfect, pristine table, and going back to the fridge, opening the door just enough to reveal well-stocked shelves overflowing with vegetables. "Half and half? Two percent?"

"I'm good," he says, and watches him close the door, grabbing his own mug on the way back from the counter; apparently Eddie drinks his black as well. Eddie might be in the middle of resetting his entire existence, but his apartment looks like something out of an interior design magazine, and he's managed to get Martha Steward levels of groceries in. 

Richie's never had his shit together like this, not even on his best days.

"You sure you're up for this?" 

He blinks up to see Eddie's raised eyebrows, and suddenly, he needs to apologize for his invasion, his presumptions. Now that he's arrived, it's clear that the only reason he'd had the nerve to show up is because somewhere, he'd gotten it into his head that between Derry and the divorce, Eddie might still be in enough of a weird, unsettled, in-between space that maybe one more upset wouldn't tip the balance. From the other end of the line, texting in hotel rooms and airport lounges, it'd been easy to think that maybe, here in this unfinished- but still _nice_\- apartment- Eddie's standards might've slipped enough to fit him in.

But now, in Eddie's spotless kitchen, Eddie's smirking like he's humoring him, or maybe like he knows that Richie _doesn't_ fit. 

And the question that Richie's been rehearsing in his head for weeks is suddenly and laughably impossible. _So. I know you're going through some shit. Is it cool that I'm still hung up on you?_

Because it might not be, now that Eddie's got him in full view. Things've probably changed since that day at the bridge- they would've _had_ to. Back in Derry, they'd just survived the _clown_, they'd still been riding out the last of the adrenaline, and everything had been upside down. The mere _knowledge_ of each other had, for a moment, been the only thing not moving between their feet. 

But then they'd gone back to their lives. They'd both had a few weeks to start righting themselves. 

Eddie's clearly made better use of that time than he himself has. He'd gone home, taken a few days to start organizing the dissolution of his marriage. Then he'd taken on two new business contracts, moved house and set up shop here. Richie's just been shuffling from hotel to club to airport to hotel for weeks. He hasn't even been _home_ yet, and it's starting to become something he's dreading. Something _else_ that he's dreading. 

He knows that Eddie's had nightmares too- who the fuck wouldn't- but he also knows that more often than not, _he's_ the one texting in the middle of the night for proof that they both still exist. Because on the whole, Eddie'd left Derry more confident and assured than he'd arrived. And the same can't be said for himself. 

But he lies for a living, so he grips the coffee mug tight, pretends to take a sip just to buy some time to steady his voice before he answers, "I mean, yeah, totally," _fuck, what's he even saying_, "if you are, still, I mean."

Eddie's brow furrows- it's cute, but worrying- and he shakes his head. 

"No, I mean-" He looks down, the scar pulling on his dimple as he drops his eyes to Richie's mug. "I just meant, you look exhausted. You sure you don't want to just crash out for a minute?"

\--- 

Eddie realizes, in the instant it's said, how _pushy_ that had sounded, but hopefully, Richie's actually too bleary-eyed to see him channelling his almost-ex-wife. Just in case, though, he tumbles through his logic. "I mean, sure, coffee might get you through, what, another few hours, but you'd still have the whole afternoon, probably be too sick to your stomach to eat anything, and then you'd still have the show to get through." 

Richie's eyes dart to the couch before landing solidly on the table. "What, you're just gonna tiptoe around, twiddling your thumbs?" he says, as if Eddie hasn't been doing just that since long before sunup. "I should probably just head to the hotel." It's telling that he doesn't even try to argue that he's not exhausted, but now that the idea's registered, Richie's shaking his head, shifting like he's intending on standing. The thought of him leaving, now that he's solidly _here_, filling space that's been mostly empty, is depressing. 

"Fuck's sake, just take the bed," he suggests. "I've got shit to do on the computer for a bit anyway." 

\--- 

Logistically easier than finding the hotel, and because honestly, he doesn't want to know which direction his brain will want to go if he's faced with more time to think about how he's fucking this up. Plus, Eddie's rolling his eyes at him and calling him an idiot and it's the first sign that while this hadn't really been according to plan, it's _fine_. 

"Your seduction technique is amazing, by the way," he comments, as Eddie drives him towards the bedroom. 

"Go to fucking sleep," Eddie says, with a final shove, "you bedraggled yeti."

"Yeah, yeah. Wake me in an hour."

"Two."

"Whatever, man."

Eddie's bedroom is even more depressing than his own back in LA, but it's a different kind of sad. Instead of dirty clothes strewn over a floor long overdue for vacuuming, it looks like an Ikea showroom, minus the happily bickering couples arguing over shelving units. And at least the kitchen'd had a pizza menu stuck to the fridge by way of decoration. 

As soon as the door's closed, Richie flings his glasses onto the nightstand and faceplants on the bed, which is made so tightly he has to wonder if Eddie'd actually done any time in the military. 

He doubts it, but it's a strange thing to not know for certain. He toes off his shoes and contemplates getting under the covers, but he's not cold, and it's _weird_, being in here, suddenly. The sheets don't smell like detergent or fabric softener- maybe a bit of the vaguely plasticy new-from-the-store smell, though he could be imagining it- and not like Eddie. Though the only times he can remember register Eddie smelling like anything, they'd both been crawling around Derry's sewers. 

Deciding that he'll point that out to him, sometime soon, he sets his phone's alarm for an hour and a half, and closes his eyes. The clouds and his own eyelids are doing more to block out the sun streaming in than the cracked shade is, and there's the bone-deep awareness that _this_ is where Eddie sleeps, this is where he lives, he's right on the other side of the _door_-

-and Richie can't fucking _sleep_.

\--- 

Eddie's in the audience, looking up at Richie launching into a story about watching porn on his girlfriend's computer. The crowd's eating it up- a woman seated right behind him is shouting that she'll be his laptop any time, and somehow, up on stage, Richie manages to hone in on it.

"You wanna sit in my lap?"

Laughing, along with the rest of the crowd, Eddie turns to look, only to find Myra sitting behind him- sitting right next to him at their shared table. She's wearing an oversized white sweater and fake leather knee-hi boots. Eddie's about to say something when suddenly, he's bathed in bright, hot light.

"You sure?" Richie mugs, then points at him. "Think I'd rather have your date." 

"_Oh_ yeah, you can _have_ him," Myra says, waving her hands and shaking her head, eyes closed. She looks like she just ate a lemon, and the crowd's _rolling_ with laughter around her.

Onstage, Richie's nose is wrinkled. "Why, what's wrong with him?" He leans over, peering down on him from the stage, studying Eddie intently, like he's some kind of newly discovered toxic mold, until his chin stretches and his face starts to crack- twin lines, carved down from his gone-wrong eyes-

-Eddie blinks, and it takes him a minute to recognize his living room as reality settles back down around him. 

His laptop's right there, still open to the NYT article about the storms down in Georgia that he hadn't quite managed to read. 

He doesn't know what time it is, only that the light's changed, slightly, maybe. 

He doesn't want to be here, and he doesn't know why- he's home, he's safe, everything's fine. It's his day off, he's _supposed_ to be dozing off over his computer, wiling away the hours until Monday. His coffee cup's still on the kitchen table, too far out of reach to bother dealing with, so he stretches instead, breathing deep and willing the oxygen back into his bloodstream. It's not until his eyes land on the closed bedroom door that he remembers, _oh._

Richie.

He'd _forgotten_ him again, and the realization sends a spike of dread, worry, _something_ into his chest because it'd happened just like _that_. 

Even if in the next thought, he recognizes it as a mere glitch in the waking process- even if he'd remembered what he'd forgotten, this time- there's never been any guarantee that that permanent, bone-deep eradication of memory would never come _again_. Mike hadn't said, and nobody'd asked, and they'd all just been relying on the fact that it hasn't happened yet as evidence that it _won't_

And if it does, maybe he'd know to miss Richie, maybe he wouldn't.

He's up on his feet in an instant- nearly stumbling on pins and needles, he rides it out and begins to stagger across the living room. The bedroom door's shut- it's the first time there's been any cause for it, and he raises his fist to knock-

-when the door swings away from his knuckles. And Richie's squinting back at him, _safe_, no glasses to speak of. "Hey."

Eddie nods, clenching his jaw, only now realizing that he'd had _no_ plan, no idea what he's doing, here. 

And Richie's picking up on it too, from the looks of things. "You alright?"

"Fell asleep."

Richie's laugh comes out like a sob, but he's grinning, shoulders relaxed. "Fuck off, no fair."

"Yeah, well," he shrugs, feeling like a goddamned idiot. "Wanna trade? My thing had clowns."

At this, Richie tenses, then straightens. "You alright?"

He could say, _I am now_, if he never wanted to live it down, or _fucking peachy_, if Richie's as down to ignore it as he is. Maybe it's better to just change the subject, 'cause it's been almost a month since they'd planned this, but now he's starting to wonder if this entire weekend's just going to be a long, drawn-out ripping off of bandages instead of, well, whatever he'd been hoping it would be. 

"Uh, Beep beep?" Richie startles him into a laugh; when he looks up, Richie's eyes are focused on his, and he's dropping his hand heavily onto his shoulder. "I get it, Eds. Whatever it is, yeah?"

He snorts, mostly to cover for the tingling sensation of his heart exploding in his chest. "Even if it's me not having a clue what I'm fucking doing?"

"Especially then. I'm the world's leading export."

"Expert."

"Exactly." Richie releases him, but doesn't back off. Eddie thinks that if he leans in, even a little, he might kiss him. But instead, Richie's just crossing his arms, then twisting to let out a yawn; the damned thing's contagious. "So, um. Thinking I gotta try the whole sleeping thing again." He darts a glance in Eddie's direction; the fact that he's not squinting means he's not really trying to see. "Wanna join me?"

He does. 

\--- 

Maybe this is how it should've been from the start. It's awkward, at first- neither of them know what to say, or where to look, or how close is too close- but after a few minutes, shifting to get comfortable is excuse enough to brush shoulders. 

It doesn't take long for Richie to drop off, after that. And with him asleep, it's no longer impossible to roll over to look at him. 

Eddie has about three minutes to study the stubble on his jaw, the way the collar of his shirt is stretched out, before Richie lets out a snore so loud it startles himself awake. Eddie manages to smother his laughter, but it gets caught in his throat when Richie rolls to face him. Squinting with one eye open, he grins, and drifts off again, oblivious to how fucking _happy_ Eddie is, right now. 

But Eddie doesn't wake him up to tell him; he can't see it changing in the next hour or two.

\--- 

They're just getting up to see about lunch when Eddie's phone rings. Turning the coffee pot back on, he takes the call into the living room. 

"Hey Myra."

Richie picks up his own phone like a lifeline. There are three messages from Anthony, the details for the hotel again, which he's already emailed twice. But Richie's never been so interested in his phone in years, trying hard not to greedily listen in. For all it feels like he'd known Eddie forever, there's been almost three decades of him that he's missed. 

But the more time he spends with Eddie, the stranger it gets. Because he'd forgotten him, almost completely, and yeah, maybe it was trauma, maybe it was some supernatural bullshit, but it's been _bothering_ him, how _completely_ Eddie'd vanished. 

Only, now that he's standing here, drinking coffee and watching Eddie pace the living room in his bare feet, watching him roll his eyes at whatever his fiancee-in-reverse is saying, there's this weird sense of _validation_. Like he's learning that all the things he'd known he'd forgotten- all the empty fucking spots where his own life should've been- they really _had_ been as important as he'd always worried them to be. 

Like his taste in men that he'd never gotten the nerve to even _speak_ to. Or the undercurrent- every fucking time he'd been brave or lonely enough to couch the thought- that he should be holding out for someone else, someone more- how even into his thirties, he'd spent so much energy fantasizing that it would transpire in the form of some mythical _right woman_, who'd saunter into his life, click into place, and haul him up onto safe and solid heterosexual ground. All the shit he's been dragging around his whole life, it hadn't even been by chance. 

And the idea, now, of forcing someone else to fill the Eddie-shaped gap is preposterous, because this, right here and now, this is so fucking easy that the fucking pretzels he's been tying himself into are just fucking _stupid_, and he wants to get Eddie off the damned phone so he can _tell_ him. 

"I'll get it signed and scan it back to you on Monday," Eddie's saying, shooting him an apologetic look as he picks up his mug and empties it into the sink before reaching for the coffee pot. "Yeah, well, the office isn't even open until then, so... Alright, fine. No, you don't need to call, I'll check my email." He rolls his eyes, then finally, after an eternity, he's signing off, turning to him again. "Sorry about that. Paperwork shit. Two more rounds on the bank, though, and one more meeting, and it's over with."

"Congratulations?"

"Fuck _yeah_ congratulations." Eddie nods, firmly, then shrugs. "Though it's a little fucked."

"Why?"

"I married my _mom_, how sick is that?" He smirks, knowing that he's set himself up, then sighs. "You know how annoying it is to realize that you'd already dug yourself up out of the same bullshit when you were twelve and just didn't know, so you have to do it all over again?" 

God, he _does_. "It was a terrible mistake," he says, not-quite-mock-seriously. "You do it a third time, I'm never going to let you hear the end of it."

Eddie's eyebrow twitches. "That a promise or a threat?"

"Yes."

"You _do_ realize that if you're gonna follow through on it, you'd have to be _around_." Smiling- not smirking, but _smiling_\- Eddie scratches his head, making his hair stick up on the side, fucking _adorable_\- 

-his skin is buzzing, his hands are sweating. This is the normal people kind of fear- exhilarating, terrifying- because _Oh Shit Eddie's Flirting With Him._

He wants to make a joke about fucking Eddie's mom, mostly because it's easier than the words getting stuck in his throat. 

"_Yeah_, Eddie. Kind of the point," he says, quick and to the point, because anything more would just be more rope to hang himself with. "Mean. If you want."

Eddie takes a step towards him, but Richie's already leaning against the counter, and there's nowhere else to go. He'd say this felt like high school again, but even before he'd remembered it completely, he would've known it for a lie. 

"I'm forty one and haven't dated in over a decade," Eddie admits suddenly, jamming his hands into his pockets and rocking nervously on the balls of his feet. 

"Least _you_ managed to figure out how to get married."

"That's different," Eddie rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "Just saying. I'm out of practice with the whole..."

Richie can feel his eyebrows crawling up his forehead as he waits for him to finish the thought; his heart's rattling his ribs but he's not going to assume shit here, not out loud. "...the whole?"

And Eddie's face scrunches up, irritably, like fighting off the blush creeping up his neck is _that_ taxing. "The whole _liking_ people thing."

And with that, Richie's entire _being_ is just _thrumming_\- he remembers this from when he was a kid and Eddie was kicking him in the face in the hammock- but this is so much better because _Holy shit. Richie _likes_ him_. 

Also, he thinks he's about to crack, that he's about to start laughing his ass off like a goddamned loon because, _fuck off, you fucking nerd, newsflash, you already kissed_ but Eddie's looking embarrassed too and _fuck, Tozier, fucking say something_. 

Richie breathes deep, thankful as _fuck_ that he's perfected the art of cracking jokes when the going gets tough, and that he knows the best jokes cut right down to the truth of the thing, and that if a joke's laughed off, well, it's still a _laugh_. 

"All right," he says, drawing himself up slightly against the counter, hoping like hell he's not splitting his grin too madly, "so you're out of practice, and experts say I have no game. But I'm down for the rebound play if you are."

It's not his best one-liner, but there it is, all on the table. Scraped open and exposed like an autopsy.

And Eddie's looking at him, fucking _stars_ in his eyes, he's so goddamned beautiful- and Richie's never had anyone look at him like this and he wants to hide and he never wants it to stop. "Yeah?"

He can't breathe, there's just no room in his chest. So at first all he can do is nod, and he probably sounds kind of crazy when he says, "yeah, whatever, however you want, all right?"

And suddenly- _finally_\- Eddie's laughing, _hard_. Bowing over with the effort, he stumbles into him hard enough that the instinctual attempt to catch him slides- so fucking easily- into a hug. Eddie's arms wrap around his sides, solid and tight enough that his laughter shakes directly into Richie's ribs and they might be crushing the hell out of each other, here, but he can still feel it when Eddie breathes against his throat.

"You got it backwards, you know." Eddie's voice is quiet, thoughtful. A little hesitant. "If we're talking rebounds, here, that would probably be my _marriage_." 

Richie's got a retort for this, he's got to have something that'll just break the fucking tension without ruining everything, and he thinks he's got it, but when he opens his mouth, "I love you," is what slips out instead, so easily that he can't even think to worry about it until it's already too late. 

Until the silence after the words are already blocking out every bit of sound in the entire goddamned world. 

But no monsters peel themselves out of the cabinets, swarming and shredding. Nobody kicks down the door to beat the shit out of him. He still knows that voice- that wheedling, awful, _don't let them know your secret_ that had been the _one_ goddamned thing he's known for true his whole fucking life- but it's starting to occur to him that, well, the secret's _out_ now, and-

-and Eddie's pulling back to look at him, beautiful and weirdly _fond_. "I love you too," he says, and then, pulling him down, practically right against his mouth, he laughs, "fucking _obviously_, all right?"

\--- 

Fuck, Eddie's never heard that so easily from anyone, never _said_ it so fucking honestly- it would be depressing if he wasn't so fucking _happy_ right now, so fucking _relieved_. So he's just going to ignore that thought in the back of his head that they both could've brushed their teeth before this- it's too late to get hung up on it now and this is _perfect_, anyway.

He lets himself be stepped back against the counter; he thinks he gasps into Richie's mouth when he's allowed to jam his hands into his hair and drag him down for a better angle, until Richie's arched over him, arms bracketing him, hands on the counter behind him, still not close enough. He manages to shrug his arms down underneath Richie's, skirting along his sides until he's got one hand fisted in his shirt and the other grabbing at his hip. 

He pulls him in, Richie landing heavily and wholly against him; Richie's reaction's no more than a stutter against Eddie's lips- just a brief tick, the span of a thought- and then his hands are tight on Eddie's shoulders. 

And he's all turned around, now, moderately aware of the possibility of just _going off_ at the press of Richie's leg against him, slightly concerned-slash-hopeful what this could be if they could both just get a shower, first. He'll probably get a crick in his neck if they keep at it like this, so he twists, winds up dragging his mouth against Richie's cheek, then just goes with it, chasing along the line of his jaw.

"Fuck, Eddie," Richie's quiet, barely more than a whisper, right against his ear, but then he's laughing, and pulling back to look at him. "Least buy a guy dinner, first." His glasses are crooked. He looks ridiculous and like he knows it, as he bats them into place; he's beautiful. 

And he's _his_.


End file.
